


The Light You Give

by gwyneth rhys (gwyneth)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Inspired by A Christmas Carol, Minor Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Multi, Steve Rogers versus the 21st Century, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 08:12:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13096026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwyneth/pseuds/gwyneth%20rhys
Summary: Steve just wants to be left alone to hate Christmas in the 21st century. Too bad a bunch of pesky ghosts have other ideas.





	The Light You Give

**Author's Note:**

> For Destina, with gratitude.

“You _could_ spend Christmas with us, you know,” Natasha said. “Most of the repairs are done, and Stark would be a lot more likely to stay on this coast than go back to California if you’re around. I’m sure it’ll be pretty low-key, we’d love to have a team holiday.”

“Yeah,” Clint said. “Spend your first holiday back with family in a nice nondenominational fashion.” At Steve’s sour look he added, “Close approximation of family, whatever.”

“We gotta clean up this mess,” Steve said, ignoring their offer. If _one_ more person with scavenged Chitauri weapons decided to play evil overlord, Steve was going to blow his top. SHIELD had done a lousy job of minimizing the destruction.

“We were gonna have Thor play Santa at the hospital,” Clint said, undaunted. “He looks _amazing_ in red. Plus he grows a beard in, like, five seconds.”

Tony came swooping up and dropped down next to the three of them with a clunk. He threw Steve a narrow look as they were dragging a cyborg body over to the barricade. “You’re gonna do it again, aren’t you? Fuck off somewhere on your motorbike of solitude like we have cooties, and who knows when the hell you’ll show up again.”

Steve sighed. “Don’t feel like celebrating. You don’t want me around, bringing you down, believe me.” It didn’t matter that he’d been leading the team for a while now—he still didn’t really know these people that well, and how he spent his personal time was none of their business. Pepper had tried to charm him into returning from his last road trip for Thanksgiving, but he’d feigned a bike breakdown and begged off even when she offered to send the Stark Industries jet to pick him up.

Almost everything about this loud, glaring, shallow modern world made him miserable, and the last thing that would cheer him up was pretending this group was family. His family was dead, buried in a Brooklyn cemetery and a field in Belgium and an Alpine ravine.

“You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch—suit yourself. All the Whos down in Whoville will have plenty of fun without you.” Tony glared at him. Steve glared back.

Over their comms, Bruce—who was handling operations back at Stark’s tower, since the Hulk was unnecessary on this type of job and might do more harm than good—said, “Leave him be, Tony. He’s got a right to do the holiday as he sees fit.”

Clint was wiping some arrows off and putting them back in his quiver. “Thor said a Midgardian holiday would be delightful. Think of the joy you’ll miss if he brings booze from home.” For Clint that might be an appealing lure, but Steve could only shrug, putting his shield on his back. “Pretty sure he’d have a better time if you were around.”

“More likely he’ll be dismayed by what a commercial festival of greed it is.”

Clint looked at Natasha like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Is this because Snoopy put all those lights on his doghouse?”

“I never know what you people are talking about,” Steve griped.

“Another vote for letting it go,” Natasha said, making a threatening gesture when Clint opened his mouth.

SHIELD’s black SUVs began rolling up to the police barricades, the Damage Control crew piling out the doors. Steve could feel the team's eyes on him as they watched him go, probably exchanging disgusted glances, but he didn’t care. The Avengers were a job, and it wasn’t a job requirement to be friends with them—work friends, people these days called it. Steve was well aware that Stark still made jokes about the stick up his ass, so what difference did it make.

They always forgot he had super hearing. “For fuck’s sake, what is his damage? I thought he finally removed the stick up his ass. This guy’s like human corrugated cardboard.” Case in point.

Natasha hissed at him and said, “Be quiet.”

Steve wheeled on them. “You know what my damage is? Christmas ’44 was almost seventy years ago to the rest of the world, but for me it’s been a couple of months.” He stabbed an angry finger in the air. “And that Christmas sure as hell wasn’t this: a celebration of greed that starts in September, where underpaid employees who can’t unionize have to work on Thanksgiving so desperate people can get the best bargains on cheap crap made in foreign countries by slave labor. It’s been industrialized and merchandized to death, and weaponized by these right-wing Christians who want to play victim against other religions. There’s a reason that these jackasses”—he waved a hand around the battle scene—“chose Christmas Eve to hit, because they knew anyone who could put up a fight would be off today, and the ones who are working are just trying to make it through the day without losing their minds. So pardon me if I find this poisonous stew of a world unappetizing and would rather spend some time working on my bike.”

The faceplate on Tony’s helmet flipped up. “ _Wow._ ” Somehow that syllable ended up containing about three paragraphs’ worth of text.

“Okay, no roast beast for you,” Clint said.

Bruce groaned over the comms. “Guys, seriously. If the man wants to be left alone, leave him alone.”

With a rough exhale, Steve said, “I hope you all have a very nice time, but I’m fine on my own, and would prefer it that way.”

Well, this was awkward: Steve had completely forgotten that Tony had carried him here, since his apartment in Fort Greene wasn’t that far away from the fight. _Fuck._ One of the Damage Control SUVs pulled up in front of him so Steve corraled the bewildered guy in the driver’s seat. “Sorry about this, but... Can you drop me home?” The driver gaped at Steve as he took his helmet off and went around to the other side.

“It’s...I...uh, I guess I could, sir. Cap—Captain. Captain America. Rogers.” He clicked the unlock button for the door, side-eyeing Steve like this was his performance review.

As he tossed his shield and helmet in the back seat, a boy of about eight broke past the police line, though they hadn’t given the all-clear for the civilians to return to their neighborhood. The kid thrust a Captain America comic book and a pen at him. “Can I have your autograph?” he asked, bouncing on his toes. Steve slid into the seat and rolled down the window, more exhausted than he’d ever been in his unnaturally prolonged life.

“I’m afraid I have to go right now, but Iron Man and Black Widow and Hawkeye are all right over there and I’m sure they’d love to sign your comic for you.” He pointed at them and gave the kid a wink, but the little guy was crestfallen. Tony, Natasha, and Clint stared at Steve.

“I can’t believe I’m a better person than he is,” he caught Tony remarking on comms.

Yeah, Steve was flawed and pathetic, so what. He grimaced and snatched the comic book, muttering, “All right.” Though he didn’t take time to personalize it, he scrawled his name, and the kid slunk away.

“What?” Steve asked when he caught the driver watching him with confusion.

“Um...and where...do you live, sir? Cap—tain Rogers.” Where were they plucking these kids from these days?

As the car turned around, Steve caught Tony signing the kid’s comic, pulling the faceplate down manually with his middle finger so Steve could see.

~~~

Steve did like lights, he wouldn’t deny that. Not that he had any to put any up in his place, but they were pretty enough when wrapped around the trees outside, or twining up stair railings, hanging from balconies and windows and doorways.

When he’d arrived home, he’d showered off the remains of the fight, taken his tools down to the garage so he could make some adjustments to the bike—it allowed him to forget everything simmering under his skin, and now he was feeling pretty crappy about blowing that kid off.

Nearly everyone except Clint had made fun of this building when Steve moved in. The prices in Brooklyn were insane, especially if he wanted someplace he could store and maintain his bike, and when he’d found this place on a quiet street toward the edge of Clinton Hill, above what had once been a working repair garage, he thought it was perfect. He didn’t need a palace, especially an ugly high rise in midtown, but Tony had taken it personally. “I built you a whole floor! Even furnished it! Everyone’s coming to live here.”

Steve had shrugged. “It looks like a Scandinavian hotel.”

Tony’d huffed. “You need, like, inoculations to live there. Heavy boots and armed escorts.” The fact that everyone questioned his sanity only made it more appealing.

Off and on Steve had been toying with the idea of heading down to Washington, DC, to visit Peggy. Months he’d been back, but still hadn’t faced seeing her, wasn’t sure how to. Night after night he’d sat at his table with the file folders of everyone he’d known and loved, nearly all of them bearing the DECEASED stamp except Peggy’s and Gabe’s. It was easier, on that first bike trip, to visit Gabe, but Peggy...well, that was a different matter. The longer he waited to see her, the worse he built it up in his mind.

She’d moved on without him, had a family of her own and a successful life, she didn’t need to be reminded of something that never was. Nick Fury said Peggy had memory issues—forgetting about new things that had happened, stuck in a time that was easier to recall. Shaking her up would be cruel, Steve told himself. At the holidays her family would be near, they’d probably hate him for upsetting her.

When Gabe had passed away in early November, it cemented the idea that Steve was doing the right thing. Yet sometimes he’d stare at the phone, reading the same pages over and over in the files, watchng her filmed interviews, and dream of returning to the ice.

He should never have been awakened. He didn’t belong here.

While he was finishing up, Steve heard a strange sound over by the utility sink and he set the wrench down, listening. It wasn’t past Nat to drop by and try to bring him out of his funk—she was, for someone so reserved, oddly peppy about getting him out into life, even tried to fix him up a couple times. But whatever made the noise stopped, so he went back to work, keeping one ear tuned just in case.

He was washing grease off his hands in the utility sink when a face appeared in the water circling the drain: not just any face, in fact, but Howard Stark’s face. His skin was greenish, stretched taut over the skull with deep hollows in the cheeks and around the eyes, and his mouth opened and closed as if to speak, but Steve heard nothing above the water. Steve’s hand flew to his mouth, he stepped back, stumbling on his toolkit, and just like that, Howard’s image disappeared.

Plenty of times since he’d been awake he’d wondered if he might have gone a little mad, that maybe this entire world was only a figment of his imagination and he was lost in some sort of limbo of the mind—had been since he took the Valkyrie into the water. But this was the first time something had truly made him doubt his sanity. He dried his trembling hands off and beat a retreat upstairs, every creak of a floorboard making his heart pound too fast until he was safely inside his place. It was far too eerie and quiet now, so he switched on the stereo to fill the space with music. Steve shook it off while he made himself some dinner; it tasted like sawdust and despair and he tried not to think about what a prick he’d been today, finishing quickly and getting ready for bed.

Once Steve crawled under the covers he couldn’t help laughing—Howard’s face had probably just been a little bit of guilt, or indigestion, maybe even one of the hits to the head he’d taken today. As Steve picked up his book, though, he heard that noise, and this time it was a hell of a lot louder. His bedroom window abruptly blew open, a bitter blast hitting him in the face all the way across the room, and he leapt out of bed to slam it shut. As soon as Steve turned around he was face to face with Howard—and this time there was a body attached to his head.

“What the everloving hell?” Steve barked, and then all at once he got it: this was one of Tony’s damn holographic thingamajigs that he’d rigged up to give Steve a little fright and maybe get him running back to the tower for company. “Okay, Tony, you’ve had your fun, you can stop. Still not coming over for Christmas.”

Ghost Howard spoke. “Hello, my old friend, it’s good to see you.” The voice was a dead-on— _har har_ —match for Howard’s, and Steve wondered how Tony did that. Of course, he had to have all kinds of video and recordings at hand. “You think I’m some sort of prank or hoax?”

“I won’t even dignify this with a response,” Steve said, and, well, he also wouldn’t let Tony and the others know that he kind of wished it really could be a Howard-shaped ghost, because Christ, he missed Howard, every bit as much as he missed Bucky and Peggy and the Commandos. “Feel free to turn out the lights with whatever gizmo you’re using.”

The stories Tony’d told him about what a crap parent Howard turned out to be depressed the hell out of Steve—not to mention the bitter jealousy Tony poured on him over Howard’s love for Steve, something Steve’d had absolutely no say about. It made finding out about Howard’s post-World War Two career even grimmer, and the legacy of destruction Tony inherited. “Oh no, pal, whatever you think’s happening here, I can assure you, it’s a lot worse.” The Howard hologram floated over and _sat on the damn bed_ next to Steve, creaking and groaning. Now that Steve had a good look, he could see the sunken cheeks and circles beneath the eye sockets more clearly, so deep and dark. His skin was more than a sickly green: it was cracked and rotten, and his shredded, moldering clothes hung loosely over his frame—’40s era suit and tie, just like the last time Steve had seen him in the War Rooms when they planned their attack on Schmidt’s base. How the hell had Tony known what Howard was wearing then? He tried to recall if he’d come across any visual records of that last briefing…

“Sure, fine, whatever,” Steve grumbled, reaching over to turn off the light, since apparently Tony wasn’t going to.

Howard’s left hand shot out and seized hold of Steve’s wrist—that was definitely not a hologram. His ice-cold fingers held Steve’s arm in a vise-like grip, and Steve stared at it, then looked up at Howard. The image. Whatever it was. “I assure you, this is for real. I’m here with a little message, because you seem pretty intent on making everyone as miserable as you this holiday season. This is a plague that infects everyone else, you know. And it’s got a real simple cure.”

Steve’s heart thundered in his chest. Ghosts were bullshit. He’d desperately wanted to believe in them when he was little so he might see his father, but never once had he seen any evidence to suggest the spectral plane existed. And even if it did, why the hell would Howard Stark be the first visitation? Steve yanked his arm, but Howard’s skeletal hand held fast—and that was a thing that was _actually happening_.

“The ones who love you want to help. We know you’re unhappy, that you never wanted this, but listen, pal, you can’t keep spreading that poison around. Your spirit has to walk the world of the living and care for your fellow man, or in death you’ll be condemned to this...” and he waved his hand around his face.

“Who’s ‘we’?”

Howard pointed up at the ceiling. And Steve knew he didn’t mean Ian in the apartment above him.

“Oh...kay. Don’t you think this a little...melodramatic?”

“I wasn’t a standup guy, after you left us, Steve. I look back on all the mistakes I made and I’m ashamed. Went off-course, you could say, after I helped get SHIELD going with Pegs. A lotta people died from things I made and I was fine with that, happy, even, because I made a lot of money. I forgot about what I learned from you and from the war. The supersoldier serum...well, that was a terrible cost to bear.” Howard looked away, his image almost vibrating. “A terrible cost.”

“Do you mean me?” Wasn’t this farcical enough without getting cryptic? Why were ghosts always so vague?

“You were good before we got you.” Howard shuddered. “Tonight you’ll be visited by three other ghosts, the first will come when the clock strikes one. Listen to them. I condemned myself to this fate by my actions and believe me, if some ghosts had popped in to show me how to mend my ways, my life woulda been better for it. Do yourself and the world a favor, buddy—you’re important. What you do with this gift of renewed life matters. Pay heed to what they have to show you.”

The window banged open once more, startling Steve so bad he almost fell out of the bed, and when his eyes returned to the spot where Howard had been sitting he found it empty. On shaking legs, Steve got up to close the window.

Howard reappeared at his side in an eyeblink. “Look at those schmucks, flying around trying to change the lives of mortals for the better and getting nowhere for their troubles. They’re cursed to keep trying, and I’m stuck with ’em. It’s a lousy fate, Steve—don’t repeat my mistakes.”

Next thing Steve knew, Howard was flying out the window, grumbling, to join the swarm of thousands of ghosts swirling through the night air.

“Okay, this is just a nightmare. This is not real,” Steve muttered darkly, his t-shirt damp from trying to close the window as a flurry of snow flew in. Still, his denial only worked so well, and when he jumped back in bed, he pulled the covers up to his chin, clutching them tight, and it took one hell of a long time to fall asleep.

~~~

Somehow he’d tossed the covers off in his sleep and it was colder than a witch’s tit when he woke. Steve sat up, laughing at the idea of being visited by Howard’s _ghost_ for fuck’s sake, when he realized a small woman stood at the foot of the bed, a light like a crown dancing over her head. No—she _hovered_ there, and she was glowing. That wasn’t the worst of it, Steve realized when he rubbed his eyes: it was his mother, when he was a child.

“What—Ma? Are you—” He glanced at the clock: one a.m. Howard hadn’t been a prank after all, because no photographs survived of her at this age and it didn’t matter how skilled Tony was, he couldn’t have faked this. She wore her best Sunday dress and an ivory cloche hat, the cotton gloves with three buttons at the side of the wrist.

“I’m the Ghost of Christmas Past. I appear to you in a form you recognize, one that loves you. There’s much to show you, and we have only a little time. Come with me.”

Steve shook his head. Much as he would love a reunion with her, he wasn’t encouraging this spectral life makeover. “Since this isn’t happening, Ma, I’m not going anywhere. And it was snowing last time I looked,” he said, pulling the covers over his head and sinking down.

Ma’s ghost grabbed the covers and threw them off, like she’d done a thousand times when he was little. “Up, up, sleepyhead.” _Fine._

“Christmas past—do you mean long past?” He didn’t want a history lesson while he was freezing his balls off .

“No, sweetheart, _your past_.” She hovered her way to the window.

“As wonderful as it is to see your face, Ma, I’d really prefer to stay home. Why do I have to go out? Can’t you teach me a lesson here?”

“It’s your welfare we’re concerned with.” She gave him that sweet, benevolent smile he remembered from when he’d given her pictures he’d drawn, when she listened to stories he’d told, when she tended the scraped knees he’d come home with.

“Can’t think of much better for my welfare than a good night’s sleep. This ghost stuff will give me bags under my eyes.” He’d hoped to make her laugh, but she only smiled.

“Your...reclamation, then, perhaps. Oh Steve. This isn’t the young man I knew.” But she wasn’t really Ma, and she didn’t really know him, did she?

With an irritated sigh he got up and grabbed some clothes, but she said softly, “You won’t need those. Come, take my hand.”

“I’m afraid I’m not one of the levitating Avengers.” But he took her outstretched hand, and a tingling warmed his own, spreading up his arm. Christ, he’d missed her so damn much, but she wasn’t real, he couldn’t tuck his face into her shoulder and cry about everything he’d lost. He needed something tangible, but this was all he’d get.

They flew out the window into a swirl of light and color until they stopped, landing softly on a cobbled street surrounded by rundown buildings. It was a far less clumsy way to fly than with Stark. “Do you remember this place, Steve?”

He frowned, and then—“Yeah, I do. That first apartment, Vinegar Hill.” It had been a terrible, drafty building but that hadn’t mattered, he’d had Ma. Behind them came a sound: footsteps down a side street, and Steve saw when he turned that they were his, when he was seven. He was scraped up and crying and yeah, he remembered this now: they’d taken his book satchel and thrown everything in the mud, including his father’s photo. It was reports day—what their fathers did for a living, and he’d been ashamed, so he’d made up a story about how his father was on safari in Africa, hunting lions.

His little self was stuffing the contents of his satchel back inside, grinding dirt into the bloody scrapes on the sides of his hands, when he’d bumped into a—a boy, bigger than him and about a year older.

Steve turned to the spirit—to Ma. “That’s when I met Bucky.” She motioned toward the boys, smiling fondly. He was afraid to go closer, but she informed him they could neither see nor hear her or Steve, and they did seem unaware there was anyone else around.

They watched as little Steve looked up at Bucky with frightened eyes and a quivering mouth, because he’d been the one to bump into Bucky and that was all a boy like that needed for an excuse to kick his behind. “Are you gonna beat me into the pavement now, too?” It had been mid-December, the dirty remains of the first snow in patchy spots all over the street.

Bucky threw his book bag over his shoulder, looking down at Little Steve with his brows drawn together. That would become very familiar to Steve, very soon. “I wasn’t plannin’ on it, but if you really want me to, I could give you a thrashing. Make it a Christmas present.” With an appraising glance, he added, “Looks like you already got a good pounding, though. What happened to you?”

Steve recalled this—he couldn’t understand why Bucky was even talking to him. Everyone knew Bucky Barnes: he was popular and an ace student. “Yeah, I guess it must be Tuesday.”

Bucky threw his head back and laughed. Steve had never thought about it before, but seeing it, oh. _Oh._ “Those mooks are a waste of space, buncha bullies. What were they after?” Said as though he’d admired Steve for putting up a fight.

“They were saying that my pop wasn’t really my father and he wasn’t dead. They said I was prob’ly a bastard.” He finished putting his messed-up things in the satchel—his little sketchbook was ruined, and that had been around the time he was showing a talent for drawing beyond little kid stick figures, square houses—and wiped his snotty nose. “I don’t got a father.”

“Sure you do,” Bucky said with a scoff. “Everybody’s got a pop, else you wouldn’t be here.” Impeccable logic, especially for an eight-year-old. “Where you live? I could help you get cleaned up, or you could come home with me and my ma’ll fix you up.” Steve had heard that Barnes was a pretty good fighter, so that made sense.

“It’s all right. My ma’s a nurse,” Steve said with pride. “But she’s at work. I’m usually alone unless I go to the neighbors’.”

Bucky cocked his head sideways, took his cap off, and scratched his head. “Well, you don’t _haveta_ be alone. Come on,” and he’d grabbed Steve in a necklock and tucked him up next to him. “We can clean up your stuff, too.”

“Why are you showing this to me?” Steve asked Ghost Ma, tears hot in his eyes. He didn’t need reminding of what he’d lost only a few months ago.

Ma smiled and touched his face, that tingling spreading across his check and down his neck. All at once they were in front of the grocer’s where he’d had his first real job, at the end of high school. He made signs and helped stock the shelves and anything else he could do within his limitations, while Bucky lifted the heavier things in the back room, carried deliveries. “Do you remember this, too?” Ma asked.

“Finnegan’s Grocery. The best employer you could ever have, and I got to work with Bucky most days.” Mr. F had been the jolliest man—he and Mrs. F weren’t able to have kids, so they’d doted on all their workers for as long as they’d had the shop. Never once had Mr. F complained about Steve’s ill health even if he missed multiple days.

Ma took his hand and spirited him inside. Steve’s cheeks heated: he knew what year this was, and that it was Christmas Eve. “I don’t know why you’re dredging this up,” he ground out. An overpowering anger rose up in him, more powerful than anything Steve had felt since he’d been brought back from the ice. He should have died with Bucky in that canyon in Austria.

“Oh, Steve,” Ma said. “Would you put out the light I give so quickly?” Christ on a crutch, the _vagueness._

But he’d been so happy here, despite the Depression, despite his health and Ma’s. The war hadn’t touched them yet; they were only boys.

Mr. Finnegan was talking with...Mrs. Conover, that was her name, at the cash register, readying to close shop as soon as she stopped yammering. She was an Olympic-level talker, if he recalled correctly. Steve watched his younger self put the finishing touches on a sign for after-holiday sales, glancing up when the bell above the door jingled, and Mr. F boomed out, “Now, boys, it’s time for our party!” Soon their three other employees would be here with families, and Mrs. F would hand out their small Christmas bonuses. The Finnegans scrimped and saved to make sure their staff always got something, no matter how meager. They were the best of people, Steve thought, throat hot and tight. He’d never even looked them up to see what had happened to them. “Why don’t you boys bring out the decorations and I will make some space here at the front. There’s a table for the punch and cakes behind the crates, young Master Barnes.”

“Yes sir,” Bucky said with excitement, whipping off the apron and rolling up his sleeves, throwing Steve a wink. Steve watched while he put his paintbrush away and hung the poster behind the counter to dry, then raced to the back room and Bucky.

Most of the decorations were already out in the store, but the party stuff was up high on rickety old shelves, and Bucky hung off the ladder, leaning down to hand Steve the boxes. When he climbed down he stayed on the last rung, hanging over Steve, grinning. It always made Steve nervous when he pulled that ape routine—he had grave doubts about how well attached that ladder was. “Look what I found,” Bucky said, the corners of his mouth tugged up in a positively vulpine smile. He held a sprig of mistletoe above Steve’s head. “Now you gotta kiss me. No wriggling out of it.”

“Buck. Someone could see us.”

“I don’t care, it’s my Christmas wish and you gotta kiss me.”

He jumped down from the ladder and squeezed Steve’s shoulder, and Steve said, “I hate you,” as Bucky pressed his warm lips to Steve’s.

“You always say the sweetest things.” Bucky drew away, beaming. They’d been so happy then—no war, the Depression was easing off somewhat, Steve’s mother was not yet gone. And Steve knew that despite his popularity with girls, Bucky cared for him most of all.

“I got you a present,” Steve said, and slipped the wrapped lump out of his pocket. “I know it’s not much.”

“No, it’s swell.” Bucky unwrapped the leather billfold. “It feels like velvet,” Bucky said, running his fingertips over it. “That must have cost a pretty penny, you shouldn’t have done that.” Steve had saved for months to replace the beat-up old coin purse Bucky had carried for years.

Bucky went over to the shelf where he stored his stuff and placed the billfold inside his jacket with reverence. “But you gotta wait for yours for when you and your ma come over tomorrow.”

Steve had laughed. “I can wait.” He remembered what Bucky had given him that year—exquisite, expensive sable paintbrushes. He’d warned Steve: “Don’t you dare use them on signs.”

Bucky’d pulled the mistletoe up and said, “Quick, before they get here,” and kissed him again, full of joy. Steve felt tears on his cheeks as he watched the scene ubfold: the other staff arriving with their families; Bucky dancing with Phyllis, the girl who worked on the register Mondays and Saturdays, and with his sisters; the two of them walking home together late, bundled against the cold and icy rain.

A shuddery breath rushed out of him. “Please, Ma, don’t make me watch this. Please take me home, or let me wake up.” _Don’t torture me with any more._

But she shook her head, great sadness in her eyes—but love, too. “There’s one more thing you must see.”

Steve groaned, his entire body heavy with despair, but he let her take his hand again and they whooshed through the air to Brooklyn: Bucky’s furlough, around Christmas of ’42. She hadn’t lied—he wasn’t cold at all though he was barefoot, wearing only his sleep pants and t-shirt and snow was flying thick and fast. But he shivered violently as he recognized what Ma wanted him to see.

Bucky stood in front of him in his service uniform, shaking his head, vainly attempting to tamp down his irritation with Steve for trying to enlist in Queens. As usual Steve was brushing him off, exactly like he’d done on the train home. “This is my only furlough,” Bucky said with desperate urgency, but Steve had just barreled over him with how much Bucky didn’t understand and he should stop trying to dissuade him. For once, Bucky didn’t let him finish. “I’ve already lost days out of this coming out here, and I’ll lose more going home. Do you really want to waste all the rest of the time we got left so you can keep deluding yourself?” They’d continued to argue all the way to dinner that night, their dates giving up on them for their miserable company.

“Why is it always about a fight with you?” Bucky asked when they got home. “What’s happened to you that you always choose to fight?” and Steve had jutted his chin out and said, “Because some people...they have to be stopped. I got just as much of a right to want to stop them.” Bucky didn’t kiss him that night, or the next; they’d just slept silently next to each other until things finally smoothed out right before he’d left for specialized training.

“Please don’t make me watch him leave again.” Bucky had been so disappointed in him, but he’d masked it, like always. Steve had watched him vanish into the crowd at the train station, exactly as he would watch Bucky vanish six months later at the Stark Expo. “Don’t let him go like this,” Steve implored his younger self, but of course he couldn’t hear, only watched Bucky’s back as he walked to the platform.

Steve passed his hand across his eyes, shaking. How many times had Bucky been disappointed by Steve always seeking the hard way out, until it cost him his life? “My time here is finished,” the ghost said. “I’ll take you home.”

“Wait, Ma,” he said, and threw his arms around her. “There has to be some—I don’t know what the point of all this was, but I don’t want to stop looking at you.” If the point of their visits was to make him feel approximately three thousand times worse, they’d succeeded admirably so far. “Howard said there’d be three spirits. Are they all like you?”

She kissed his cheek, that same weird tingle flowing into muscle and bone, and laughed, musical and soft. “You’ll see!” she said as if it was some kind of delightful surprise. He held her tighter, tighter, and then realized he was kneeling in bed, holding his pillow. Well, that was a little humiliating.

It was all merely a nightmare, wishful thinking. The Howard in his dream had put the idea of someone meaningful from his past in his head. Now Steve was freezing so he grabbed a blanket off the bed. Normally he turned the heat down at night, but with all these windows banging open and getting up and down, he wanted to turn up the thermostat. Maybe grab a midnight snack—turned out nightmares about running around with ghosts made you really hungry.

~~~

Sitting in Steve’s kitchen was Dum Dum Dugan, and on the table was a feast that looked fit for Thor. His bowler hat was tipped back on his head and he was gnawing on a huge turkey drumstick in one hand, drinking from a giant tankard of what Steve assumed was ale in the other.

Steve looked at the clock—of course. Two a.m. This was so annoying.

“How do you do, Cap?” Dugan bellowed. “Hope you don’t mind I ordered in.”

“Howard sent you, I assume? You’re here to frogmarch me down memory lane in the hopes it’ll make me appreciate my life more?”

“Howie’s not the one in charge of this. And memory lane ain’t my brief.”

“Well, then, who is in charge? Because I’d like to have a word with the management.”

Dugan laughed, loud and fond. “Come on, then, grab hold of my coat.”

 _Oh, that again._ Steve rolled his eyes and touched Dugan’s old wool Army greatcoat, when he found himself standing outside the window of a house. “I don’t know this place…” He stepped closer to the window to see inside the warm, glowing room.

“You’d have known it if you’d bothered to visit.” The words hit Steve hard, right in the heart. Peggy’s daughter’s home in Washington, DC. “Come on.” Dugan took Steve right through the wall, much to his shock. “They can’t see—”

“Or hear me, I know.”

She was surrounded by family—Steve had never met them, but he’d seen enough photos on the Internet. Yet it was startling to see them in real life: her daughters and son were older people themselves now, and they each had grandchildren of their own. At least half of them were here.

The dining table was crowded, but they were all happily smooshed together, and gifts and wrapping paper littered the living room. “Yeah, Pegs had a good life. Even without you, she made it a happy one. Not that it didn’t take her a while to get past losing you.” Dugan stroked his handlebar moustache. “I guess that was true for all of us.” He pointed at her kids: “That’s Sarah, Michael, and Angela lives in England now.” Had Sarah been for his mother? He remembered that Peggy’s file had listed a London address. Fury said she’d come home when Steve was discovered, had stayed nearby for weeks, till it looked like he might not wake up.

If he’d lived, those children might have been his. He stared at Dugan’s ghost for a while, glum, eventually moving closer to Peggy’s end of the table.

“Mum, are you sure you’re all right?” her daughter asked, filling her water glass.

“I’m quite fine, dearest. A little tired, but I’m in my nineties, what can I do?” It was amazing to hear her voice, despite how rough it had grown with age. Her gray hair curled around her face and he thought she was still breathtaking.

Peggy watched the young ones eating their Christmas dinner. Sarah leaned toward Michael. “It’s him, isn’t it? Because he still hasn’t visited her. Not even a phone call.”

Michael kept his voice low. “Well, in fairness, he wrote her a letter. He did say he was messed up, coming back and all.”

“Nice of Mikey there to defend you, Cap,” Dugan said. “Seriously, not even a phone call? You know they have picture phones just like Dick Tracy here in the future.”

Steve pointed a finger. “Tell you what, old buddy. When you get dragged back to life and everything you loved is gone, then I’ll take your mocking. Till then, shut your yap, Dum Dum.” Man, this was really doing something to him—he’d never once spoken to his men like that, but Dugan merely chuckled. There was nothing to take personally because he was only a spectre, after all.

“A letter,” Sarah scoffed. “Well, isn’t that so generous.”

“Oh, come on, what do you expect? He can’t carry a torch for a woman who’s old enough—”

“Don’t you dare! He’s the same bloody age, chronologically. I’m not asking him to look at her through the same eyes, not at all. But he can’t have simply stopped caring about her completely. Look how frail she is—I’m worried about her, she’s acting so distant, almost like when Dad died.”

The others drew Sarah and Michael into conversation, so the rest of the meal went peaceably enough, till one of the youngest kids asked, “Is it true you knew Captain America and Iron Man?” Peggy brightened when he jumped off his chair, picked up some toys, and came to show her his Cap and Iron Man action figures.

“Oh yes. In the war I knew the captain rather well, and I knew Iron Man when he was your age. His father and I worked together in the war, too. Of course, he couldn’t fly yet when he was just a boy,” she said with a wink.

“Can we meet them?” another one asked.

“Someday, perhaps,” Peggy said, taking the Cap toy, and she glanced at Sarah and Michael.

That seemed to be the signal for them all to move to the living room. “If he bothers to make contact,” Sarah said with maybe more acid than was necessary as they helped Peggy to the sofa.

“They hate me,” Steve said, stunned. “They hate me for hurting her.”

“Nah, not hate,” Dugan commented. “They don’t know you, though. All they see is a heartbroken mother, and they’re just being protective of her.” Dugan stuffed a phantom cigar in his mouth.

“I never thought she’d be so… Can you—can you tell me what will happen to her?” He hadn’t cared much about his own mortality, not after Bucky was gone, but facing hers had been too much, and she was suffering for his cowardice. “I know she can’t live forever, I know that, but will she be all right for a while longer?”

“That ain’t my brief, either, Cap, but I can tell you that a part of her’s been holding on for you. She hasn’t let her kids know that her memory’s starting to fail, and she ain’t getting around so easy anymore.” Dugan sighed, staring at the table where some of the grandkids were cleaning up. “I _can_ see...an empty space at that table at Christmas, maybe next year or the year after. If the future remains unaltered, anyhoo.” The kids were swarming around Peggy for her stories about Captain America and Iron Man, though they weren’t aware of how much it pained her. “Ah, but what difference does it make, right? It’s just a poisonous stew of a world, so she’s better off checkin’ out of it.”

“Wow, cheap shot.” But Steve supposed he deserved it.

Dugan favored him with an eye-roll and said, “Take hold of my coat. I got orders for one more thing to show you.”

Steve knew the spirit would take him to Avengers Tower—what Stark was calling it now—so he wasn’t surprised when they whooshed to the floor Tony’d turned into a common space. Bruce, Tony, Natasha, Pepper, and Clint were all seated at the grandiose bar, the multicolored Christmas lights strung over it illuminating their faces. Behind it, Colonel Rhodes was playing bartender with an assist from Thor, which made Steve actually bark out a laugh. On one of the nearby tables was the remains of a big feast. They looked like an odd, extended family.

“I’m fairly certain I’m not gonna move again for about six months,” Clint moaned, pressing his hands to his belly. He was wearing one of the prized ugly Christmas sweaters he’d been telling Steve about earlier in the day. Was it still the day? He was losing all sense of time.

“What’s the lesson here—that I’m missing out on great...roast beast, or whatever Clint called it?” Steve asked.

Dugan pulled his bowler down over his eyes, sighing in exasperation. “You’re not gonna give this pouty act a rest, are you? I sure as hell don’t recall you being like this back in our day.”

Steve shrugged. “Well, you’re not really Dugan, are you? You’re just a ghost in a form I’d recognize.”

“Maybe they shoulda sent the Skull.”

Huh. He hadn’t really thought about that—maybe this whole annoying night was somehow related to the Tesseract. Maybe this really was simply a waking nightmare powered by someone who shouldn’t have the cube. What if he was still underwater, and dreaming this entire modern hell he’d been stuck in?

The conversation with the team had continued while he and Dugan were talking, and when Steve turned his attention back to it, Tony was saying to Nat, “You seem unusually unopinionated about all this tonight.”

She and Pepper exchanged a glance. “I was just thinking about what Steve said.” A few of them groaned. _That_ hurt. “And I went looking for some of the old newsreels. I’ve seen a lot of it in his files, but there were a few on the web I hadn’t, and I got stuck on this one.” She pulled out her phone from a pocket in her dress that was completely invisible—she was always doing that sort of thing, as though her Widow’s Bites or phones or guns were kept in some kind of time-space distortion only she knew how to access.

“Can I see which one it is?” Steve asked.

Dugan held his hands out, as if to say _you’re a moron._ “They can’t hear or see you, remember?” He stood behind them as they crowded around her phone, and Tony huffed, grabbing her phone and shaking it—the screen appeared in midair above the bar. What a showoff.

“Oh.” Steve knew this: Christmas of ‘43, right after their first mission as a squad. Colonel Phillips had been annoyed because they’d put up a small tree in the command post and decorated it with ornaments cut from Spam cans and ration tin keys and dog tags from soldiers they’d lost. Phillips had said it was a waste of time when there was a war to fight, but Steve knew he’d secretly liked it.

“That was a fine end to a lousy year,” Dugan said.

The Signal Corps film crew followed them around for a couple weeks while the Kreischberg factory rescue was still big news. Peggy rarely allowed herself to be caught on film at the time for obvious reasons, but Bucky hadn’t yet realized how much he hated attention: that they were childhood best friends and Captain America had charged behind enemy lines to find Bucky was really the biggest news of all, and the press ate everything about Bucky up with a spoon. Steve watched as the film showed them going over plans with Peggy and Phillips, the Christmas tree quite noticeable behind them as the narrator intoned about Captain America’s heroic derring-do and the fine men and women working beside him. The camera lingered on Bucky for a while as he fussed with his hair—he was always fussing with his hair—and then Steve shared a smile with Peggy and Bucky before leaving the tent. Steve had never noticed this before, just as he’d never seen the way Bucky looked at him till Ma’s ghost had shown him: they loved him and he loved them and it was written across the screen in huge neon letters. He was almost embarrassed for his past self.

“Yes, I see it,” Thor said, and Pepper and Rhodey murmurred agreement.

“I don’t—what? See what?” Tony sounded more annoyed than confused.

“Are you an idiot?” Thor asked Tony with a deep chuckle, and everyone laughed.

“Idiot? You’re saying I’m an idiot?” Rhodey nodded enthusiastically, so Tony gave him the finger. “Who in this room is the _genius_ billlionaire phil—”

“Philanthropist playboy, blah blah blah, yes, we know,” Clint lamented, flapping his fingers and thumb together and knocking back his drink. “Bored now.”

“I will not be heckled in my own clubhouse.” Tony scowled. “What exactly is it I’m supposed to be seeing here?”

“It’s okay, Tony,” Bruce said, patting him on the back. “You’ll figure it out eventually.”

“I don’t—” but Clint cut Tony off by grabbing Nat’s phone and handing it back to her.

Clint said, “A toast: to absent friends who need alone time at Chistmas. And to the ones who can’t be here at all.” Steve lowered his head: he hadn’t even considered how hard it must be for Clint to carry on after the damage he’d done on the helicarrier and the role he’d played in Coulson’s death.

The group raised their glasses except for Tony, who was still frowning. “So Cap hates Christmas because Aunt Peggy’s old and Barnes is dead and they had a tree in the war?”

“Oh my god.” Natasha stared at Tony with a kind of horrified awe.

Pepper closed her eyes and leaned over, whispering in his ear. “Oh! Oooohhhh.” He waited for Rhodey to pour him another drink, but when he held it up, he said, “I’m not toasting Grouchy McGrinchfart, I’m toasting the Avengers who are assembled, and the ones we lost along the way.” Natasha rolled her eyes and flicked him square on the forehead. “Ouch.”

Steve turned to Dugan. “What other entertaining torments have you devised for our time together?” He mimed looking at a watch and tapped his wrist.

Dugan appeared to have aged a hundred years in the span of an hour. “I’m spent, Cap. Teaching you something is a really hard job. Poor Barnes, he really had his hands full, didn’t he?”

“Can I just go home? I promise not to be a chump to my co-workers again, and be filled with the holiday spirit. I’ll wear a themed sweater.”

Dugan squinted. “Home, huh? Oh, sure,” he said with forced cheer. All of a sudden they were out on the street, Park Avenue, Steve thought—no, Fifth. All the buildings were hulking black shadows without facades, the park was nothing but empty darkness. Flurries of icy snow bit at his skin, which pissed him off because he’d let the first ghost talk him out of getting dressed.

Steve turned to Dugan, but he was gone. The street was silent except for the howling wind coming out of the park. “Dugan?” Steve called. “Hey, ghost?” No response. Well, he had said he’d wanted to be alone.

Wrapping his arms around himself, Steve headed downtown, searching for any signs of life, but since this was a nightmare, his only company was the wind. Near the zoo, he was stopped dead in his tracks: a figure wearing a black, hooded cloak, its face completely hidden by darkness, stood in the street.

 _Shit, this does not look good._ Steve wished for those familiar, annoying ghost-faces again. “Are you—you’re another spirit, right? Let me guess: Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?” The wind picked up, ice pellets stung his flesh. Apparently it didn’t appreciate his tone. Steve didn’t want to go toward it, but he felt like there wasn’t much choice here: no one involved in this scheme seemed particularly interested in whatever the hell Steve wanted. Jesus _fuck_ it was cold—but that wasn’t why he shivered as he walked ahead.

It raised its left arm, the cloth slipping back to expose a shiny silver hand and wrist. There were lines etched into it, possibly to help the fingers move, and Steve was pierced by cold dread. For some reason he thought he heard, under the wind, Bucky’s scream as he fell from the train. “I don’t know why, but out of everything I’ve seen tonight, I think I fear you most of all,” Steve said, his voice sounding far away. The ghost turned and pointed in the direction of Brooklyn. So it wasn’t talking, he supposed, and that made it far creepier. Steve touched its cloak—no one could call him a slow learner—and instantly the cold disappeared, his feet and hands no longer numb.

Steve found himself in some place he didn’t recognize—maybe the Brooklyn Municipal Building, it was hard to tell. But he most definitely recognized what was on the glass doors and the banners which hung from the edifice and all the lampposts on the street: the Hydra sigil. Steve thought he would be sick. “How— No. This can’t be.” Steve turned to the ghost for some kind of explanation, but its black, empty head was inclined toward three men and a woman standing across by the fountain, holding coffees and smoking. The Christmas lights on the lampposts were a grotesque contrast to the Hydra banners.

“He should have died a long time ago, anyway,” the woman said. “He was a disgrace. He let them walk right in.”

“SHIELD, my ass,” one man said, and spat on the ground. “A shield is supposed to protect you.”

“Well, if you’re not part of the problem, you’re part of the solution!” another fellow said, and they all burst into laughter. “They could have at least put them in prison. But you know, it is what it is. Not like most of us are any worse off now that the dust’s settled.”

“Who are they talking about?” Steve asked the spirit, but he knew the answer.

“I idolized him growing up. I never thought he’d be the kind of person who’d abandon—”

The woman interrupted him. “We should be careful. We can’t talk about this.”

The guy who’d been speaking looked around, furtive, and took a drink of his coffee. “At least now he’s dead, so I guess he got what he wanted. He was never happy here.”

“The Winter Soldier will take care of the stragglers, protect the rest of us.” The man seemed happy about that. “He’s better, if you ask me.”

“At what?” Steve asked, because he wasn’t such a quick learner after all and he kept expecting this spook to answer him. This was early Nazi Germany all over again—telling yourself up was down, dark was light. “What’s the Winter Soldier?”

The spectre’s cloak rustled, as though it was shuddering; its shiny silver hand shot up, pointing. Steve took hold of the robe, drawing a breath and closing his eyes against the nausea in his guts. The ghost took him to a whole different scene: Clint, Natasha, and Bruce huddled around a fire outside a small cabin. They were surrounded by thick, dark forest, Steve couldn’t tell where—but he knew somehow that they were in hiding.

Natasha was speaking, the light of the flames dancing across her face. “I don’t know how much longer he would have survived, anyway, so maybe it’s better. I just wish Thor could...” She shook her head, and Steve longed to know what she was going to say.

“It’s not _better_ ,” Clint snarled. “And Thor is never coming back so stop wishing for it. He fucked off to Asgard because Cap fucked off to who knew where, and then _boom!_ , hello new world order and goodbye Thor for good. He always said he esteemed Cap above all the rest of us, so he’s not coming back just because tiny petty humans fucked themselves over. The Avengers are dead or gone. Deal with it.” Steve had never heard Clint talk to Nat like that—they were as close to each other as he and Bucky had been.

“Dead?” Steve said. “They must mean Tony and Rhodey and… And I’m the dead man they were talking about.” The figure swiveled its head toward him, but said nothing.

“The Winter Soldier will find anyone connected to us,” Bruce said with resignation. “Maybe they’ll at least just stick you guys in a prison, I don’t know, but me...they’ll find a way to get the Other Guy full-time. Who knows what they’ll do to anyone else who’s enhanced. Let’s be real: they want the Other Guy. Then they won’t need the Soldier or any army at all.”

“We keep moving to other countries…” Natasha offered.

“Where they’ll find us and kill us, the same way they found Cap.” Clint shook his head in disgust.

“Well, then, we die fighting, just like he did.” Natasha’s chin jutted out.

“You like to believe that’s how he went out.” But Clint just seemed resigned, not angry anymore.

“No,” she said with vehemence, her teeth bared. “I _know_ that’s how he went out. He wouldn’t abandon us. I won’t buy into Hydra propaganda. Fuck you.”

“The thing is, he wasn’t there when we needed him. He never really was.” Clint looked up at the sky. “And a Merry Fucking Christmas to you, and to all a good night.”

Bruce began to say something, but Steve couldn’t bear to hear it. He stumbled backward through the snow till he came up against a tree and he leaned there, breath coming in shallow gulps, trying not to throw up. The ghost moved toward him, its feet never even touching the ground—if it had any feet, Steve thought stupidly—and it pointed again. Steve wanted to rip its shiny fucking hand right off its arm and beat it to ghost-pulp.

“Honest,” he said, “it’s been great, but do we have to stay for the credits? I’m fine if you just take me back home.”

Its only response was to point, so Steve went in that direction and found himself in a graveyard. Though it had no footfalls, Steve heard it follow him. “I already know I’m dead in this future, this is kind of gilding the ugly lily, don’t you think?” He wrapped his arms around himself, although he was no longer cold. “Look, I give in, whoever you are. I’ve been changed by the things I’ve seen tonight. I won’t put up a fight anymore.” Still the infernal thing kept pointing at something in front of him. Steve bent to brush the snow away from a grave marker.

Not a memorial, or a tomb, or a headstone: only an unadorned bronze marker in the earth, with his name and date of birth. He’d died on Christmas Eve, 2014. Nothing about Captain America, about saving the world in the war. It was a site full of pauper’s graves, most unmarked, so he supposed he shouldn’t complain. He remembered those from when he was a child; he’d never thought to see that again, but Hydra was the new world order, like Clint said. The unfortunate would be erased, forgotten here.

In a fury, Steve wheeled on the ghost and leapt for it, grabbing at what he hoped might be a—real, possibly shiny silver—head. He managed to get a fistful of hood and yanked. There was definitely a head under there, but he wasn’t certain that was truly a face: he saw only high-tech goggles and a lower-face mask that went from the bridge of a nose to the neck, and its long, dark, lank hair covered what might be a forehead. It threw him off with great force—enough that Steve flew through the air to land on his ass, skidding on the cold wet ground. For some reason he thought _Bucky_ as he stared up at it, and Steve shuddered violently.

He couldn’t take this anymore, he really couldn’t: all the loneliness and anger and grief he’d been choking on for months poured out and he howled up at the thing with an incoherent rage. And it merely stood there passively, staring at him—or at least he thought it was staring at him. “Why show me this, if I’m not past all hope?” Steve cried, squeezing his head. “Tell me I can still change these shadows that you’ve shown me. I’ll change, if that’s what you want. I will.” When the ghost said nothing, Steve put his head in his hands.

But when Steve heard nothing and brought his head up to open his eyes, he was sitting in his bed. His sleep pants and t-shirt were dry, the covers were folded neatly at the bottom. He jumped off the bed and wildly searched the apartment; there wasn’t a single sign anyone had been here exept himself—not even a crumb from Dugan’s feast. The clock read five a.m.—good, that would give him plenty of time to get everything together.

Steve hopped in the shower. He loved this tankless water heater because it never ran out of hot water, and he laughed: maybe there were a few things he could find to like in this century, after all.

~~~

“You’re sure there’s room for me?” Steve asked, kissing Pepper on the cheek and smiling at Natasha. Behind him trailed the kids he’d hired to help him bring over the enormous Christmas dinner.

“Of course,” she said, “I’m so, so happy you changed your mind. Though I didn’t understand what you meant when you said you were bringing a few things...this is. Wow. Steve, it’s too much, you should have let our chef do it.”

Tony eyed the containers suspiciously as the guys set everything up. “We already have one Christmas turkey—it’s not like you needed to come.”

Steve smiled. “Hilarious.” He dropped a few bags of presents under the tree.

“When did you have time—okay, where did you get all this?” Natasha asked. Steve thought he detected a note of admiration in her voice, like she’d never really appreciated his tactical capabilities before. Though she’d probably be pretty disappointed when they found out the presents were just cheap things he’d picked up at the gas station on the way.

“Turns out there’s a lot that you can accomplish even on a holiday if you play the Captain America card.” He turned to Tony, who was annoying the guys by poking under tinfoil and chafing dishes. “And you don’t fuck off on cross-country road trips of solitude.”

Tony cocked an eyebrow. “All right. You’ve officially returned to my good graces on a provisional basis.”

“Does he get some roast beast?” Clint asked, not even bothering with waiting till meal time, tearing the top off the container of mashed potatoes and poking around for the gravy.

“Yes, he does,” Pepper said quite sternly.

Steve motioned Tony aside, over by the bar. “Cocktail?” Tony asked, not bothering with a reply, pulling liquor off the shelf. “What’s something suitably old-fashioned...right, an Old Fashioned. So what’s up?”

“Plain scotch will do fine,” Steve said, and didn’t twitch when Tony pulled out the absurdly expensive single malt he kept under the counter. “Can I ask you something? Have you spoken to Peggy recently? I’m way overdue for one of those face calls with her. I’ve never bothered to look at the app on my phone—would you show me how, and maybe you’d like to talk to her, too?” Tony was overjoyed at the chance to get techy around Steve. Or maybe he was just touched to be included.

“Yeah. Yeah, I can help with that. I haven’t spoken with her in donkey’s years, that’d be nice.” He handed Steve the glass. “But I can do you one better. I’ll get my plane tanked up and ready to go when we’re done with festivities here. We’ll visit together.”

Steve smiled into his glass. “That would be...that’d be great. Probably best to call ahead first, though, so we don’t, you know, give her or her kids a stroke.”

“Ha, yeah.”

“Thanks, Tony.” Steve looked around the room, at the team enjoying themselves and laughing at some story Thor was telling about Asgard, at Pepper taking over the dinner operations. Maybe they weren’t a replacement for all that he’d lost, but they didn’t have to be. There was room in his life for more. “And I’m sorry about yesterday. I hope today will make up for it a little.”

“Don’t mention it,” Tony said. “That’s what friends are for.”

“Yeah. I recently got the chance to figure that out.”

**Author's Note:**

> I had this dream that was a little bit A Christmas Carol with a dash of It's a Wonderful Life, and thought, "Oh! I should write a short last-minute holiday fic that's just a bastardized A Christmas Carol when I'm through with Yuletide!" Ha ha ha goddammit. Somehow I ended up obsessing on making it follow the original as well as I could and now it's 10k. Still, I hope you enjoy, and have a great holiday.
> 
> On [tumblr](http://teatotally.tumblr.com/post/168808757195/new-fic-the-light-you-give) if you'd like to reblog.


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